Cue the highlight music.

After a summer of goals, bad bounces, good laughs, questionable line changes and bodies occasionally reminding us that we aren’t 25 anymore, the 50+ Oldtimers Summer Hockey season reaches its final Monday night at Crystal Fieldhouse.

And we’ve got two championship-side matchups worth watching:

Lukes Lawn vs. Flint Oldtimers
Antcliff vs. Family

Lukes and Family have been two of the strongest contenders all season, but getting to the final night wasn’t exactly uneventful.

Previously on Monday Night Hockey…

The first round on August 10 gave us three very different games.

Antcliff 3, MADD Dogs 0

Antcliff advanced behind a shutout from Edwin Dean, who won a strong goaltending matchup against Nick Robbins.

Dean and Robbins are both among the younger goalies in our rotation — relatively speaking, of course — and both are capable of taking over a game.

On this night, Dean and the Antcliff defense closed the door.

Flint Oldtimers 3, Gears Beer 1

The next game matched Chris Blachura in net for Gears Beer against Mike Orlando for Flint Oldtimers.

They’re different kinds of goalies.

Chris is the bigger physical presence and takes up plenty of net. Orlando isn’t quite as large, but anybody who has played against Mike knows what he brings:

He competes for every puck.

Flint got the better of the matchup, holding Gears Beer to one goal and earning its spot opposite Lukes.

Gears Beer had an up-and-down summer and unfortunately saved one of its down stretches for the finish.

There was, however, an important personnel issue.

Our star player Howie went on injured reserve after suffering an injury while sleeping.

Yes.

Sleeping.

No collision.

No slapshot off the ankle.

No heroic shot block.

Apparently, once you reach Oldtimers hockey, the injury report needs to cover not only games and practices but also the eight hours you’re supposed to be resting.

That’s tough to game-plan around.

And Then There Are the Veteran Goalies…

The other goaltending pairing featured Don Arndt and John Hackett, two of the more experienced members of our goalie fraternity.

Let’s just say the defensive game plan changes a little depending on who’s between the pipes.

When Dean, Robbins, Blachura or Orlando is back there, the instructions are pretty conventional:

Don’t screen your goalie. Let him see the shot.

With Don and John?

The defensemen occasionally become part of the equipment package.

Block one with a shin pad. Get a stick in the lane. Maybe accidentally stand in exactly the right place.

We call it team defense.

Don and John have been around long enough to understand the arrangement, and the rest of us understand something even more important:

Anybody willing to put on goalie gear and stand in front of pucks for a bunch of old hockey players deserves our appreciation.

Without goalies, we’re just a bunch of guys skating around passing a puck and arguing about whether it went in.

🚨 Now Comes the Final Monday

The top of the 50+ standings has been competitive all summer, with Lukes Lawn and Family establishing themselves as the teams everyone has been chasing.

Lukes finished the regular schedule on top at 9-1-2, while Family entered the postseason at 7-4-1.

Now the final round gives us:

Lukes Lawn vs. Flint Oldtimers

Lukes has been the team to beat.

They’re disciplined, they can score, and they’ve been remarkably consistent throughout the summer.

But Flint Oldtimers earned its way into this game and comes in after knocking off Gears Beer.

One more game.

One more chance to knock off the top dog.

Antcliff vs. Family

Family has been right near the top all year, while Antcliff has proven capable of making life miserable for anybody trying to score.

After shutting out MADD Dogs, Antcliff now gets one of the league’s strongest teams.

That should be a good one.

🍺 What Happened to Gears Beer?

Our Gears Beer squad showed flashes of being very good this summer.

Unfortunately, flashes might be the operative word.

We were streaky.

When things clicked, we could play with anybody. When they didn’t, well…

There was always beer afterward.

Losing Howie didn’t help, especially considering the unusually dangerous circumstances surrounding beds and sleeping.

We’ll be reviewing our offseason sleep-safety protocols.

📺 Meanwhile, the 60+ Gears Beer Team Just Kept Winning

The Wednesday 60+ Gears Beer-sponsored team had a considerably different summer.

That group was dominant.

Even after losing Howie for the last few games, Gears Beer continued winning and finished atop the four-team league.

The final standings had:

Gears Beer — 5-3-0, 10 points
Milnes Cheney — 4-3-1, 9 points
Rolls Mechanical — 3-4-1, 7 points
Tucker — 2-4-2, 6 points

In the final round, Gears Beer picked up another 4-2 victory over Tucker.

The other game ended in a 3-3 tie between Rolls and Milnes Cheney, but there was one individual performance worth putting on the highlight reel:

Jon Morengo scored all three Rolls goals for the hat trick.

Three goals. One player. One game.

That earns a stick tap.

And it was a fitting ending to a competitive 60+ summer season — good hockey, close games, and plenty of guys still proving they can put the puck in the net.

🍻 The Real Story of the Summer

We keep standings because we’re competitive.

We keep score because nobody wants to hear the other team claim they won when they didn’t.

And yes, we’d all rather win than lose.

But that’s not really why we’re still doing this.

The best part is walking into the rink every week, seeing the same guys, giving each other a little grief, strapping on the skates and playing what may still be the greatest exercise ever invented — ice hockey.

For an hour, we’re hockey players again.

We compete.

We chirp.

We blame the referees.

We solve several major world problems in the locker room.

And then we come back the following week and do it all again.

That’s Oldtimers Hockey.

🏒 Fall/Winter 50+ Registration Is Open

Now we get ready to do it again.

Registration is open for the upcoming 50+ Fall/Winter League at Crystal Fieldhouse.

And we’d like to make this one considerably bigger.

Our goal is to build the 50+ league to 10 or even 12 teams this winter.

Once we have the 50+ registration underway, we’ll open registration for the 60+ league, where our goal is six teams.

More teams.

More balanced competition.

More guys getting back on the ice.

And undoubtedly more material for future Oldtimers injury reports.

If you’ve been thinking about playing again, this is the time.

If you know somebody who used to play, send him the registration information.

If somebody says he’s too old?

Tell him we have a 60+ league.

Then tell him some of those guys are still pretty darn good.

Get registered. Tell an old teammate. And we’ll see you at the rink.

Oldtimers Hockey Club

Still Playing the Greatest Game on Ice